January is a good time to reflect, recharge, and establish healthy habits that make us more effective in our nonprofit work. Many of us work for nonprofits because we are passionate about social change missions. But let’s be honest, working in the nonprofit sector can be tough, especially with limited resources and the never-ending to do list. Despite the challenges, many of us manage to get extraordinary results without burning out.

This month’s carnival was an opportunity for nonprofit bloggers to share a post that addressed this question: What self-care techniques, rituals, or habits do you personally live and breath everyday that keep you inspired, calm, and effective at your nonprofit?

We had some awesome submissions from nonprofit bloggers about being healthier and happier in 2016.

Values

5 Core Values at Work for 2016 by Kathy Naylor, VP of HR and Talent at the MIND Research Institute shares the core values that will insure your happiness and health at your nonprofit career.

7 No Cost Self-Care Actions by Lori L. Jacobwith of the Fire Starters Blog offers up some terrific ways to avoid burnout that are free or low cost.

Stress Reduction

Top Ten Tips for Dealing with Anxiety by Suzette Annan at the HealUrHead blog offers some terrific tips on how to calm anxiety that many of us feel when we work in situations with few resources and lots of major work to accomplish.

Making and Caring for My Soul from Marlowe Miller, Professor of English and Associate, UML Center for Women and Work shares the power of being creative as a stress reduction technique.

Making New Habits and Keeping Them

My Resolutions for 2016 by Joyce Lee-Ibarra at JLI Consulting Blog shares her plan for getting enough sleep every night, a sure fire way to be productive,

5 Pitfalls That Ruin Your Productivity (and Sanity) by Megan Keane, Membership Director, NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network writes about some common challenges that get in the way of our personal productivity and suck our energy like powering through your work day without taking a break.

While these posts are not all recently published, I think they are place to start to think about “self-care for nonprofits” and set the stage. All of these posts talk about the need for the nonprofit’s culture to nurture and support self-care of its staff. When self-care responsibility is on the backs of the individuals, it doesn’t work as well.

There are two resources offer lots of useful tips and readings on how you can learn to take care of yourself – and move from a chronic state of stress to a chronic state of self-care. The University of Buffalo Self-Care Starter Kit is a comprehensive collection of resources and readings geared for social workers and others that may suffer from secondary trauma. If you are looking a for an entertaining and highly quick read, check out Nonprofit with Balls: 7 Self-Care Tips.

More recently the Harvard Business Review Blog published an excellent piece called “Help Your Team Reduce Stress and Avoid Burnout,” which summarizes a lot of the research about why working endless hours is not actually productive. The tips are great for teams of individuals to practice together. I particularly like the advice about “monotasking.”

Model and encourage well-being practices

Allow time to disconnect outside of work

Train the brain to deal with chaos

Emphasize “monotasking” for better focus

Be purposeful about “gap” time during the work day, or slow periods over the course of the working year

Beth… first let me thank you for including my submissions for the January Nonprofit Blog Carnival. You are very kind. Thank you! On a side note, I just wanted to let you know that I started following/reading bloggers approx 14 years ago. You were the first blogger I ever subscribed to. You aren’t just my favorite blogger (even to this day), but when I started blogging almost 5 years ago I used you as the “gold standard” of blogging. I aspired to your excellence and awesomeness and still do so to this very day. Thanks for being an inspiration to all of us.

[…] January’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival and got us heading in the right direction with her theme What Are You Doing to Be Happier and Healthier in 2016? Julie Campbell is hosting February’s Carnival and is asking for submissions […]